Bicycles

Mark Hallinger

Sea Otter Expo: Sage's lightweight ti bikes with soul

With a 13.2 lb road bike and a mountain bike with progressive geometry, Sage isn't shy about making bold statements

Dave Rosen and his 13.2lb ti road bike. Photo: Mark Hallinger

The goal of Beaverton, Oregeon, based Sage Titanium is to create high-end performance bikes that have soul. The material of choice is 3/2.5 titanium. Owner and founder David Rosen sees the material as maintaining a link to the glorious metal history of the bicycle, with no compromises in weight, ride or performance.

Rosen – who has a background in mountain, road and cross racing – had ridden steel, titanium (ti), and carbon frames over the years. Yet by 2011 he was burned out on every year’s latest and greatest carbon frame, which he felt was the mass marketing of a bland, commoditized product sold at a high price, so he started Sage the following year. Today, Sage offers both stock and custom road, cross and gravel frames.

‘Custom,’ for Sage can be just some tweaks to an established geometry or a fully custom geometry based on data from a professional fitter. New for 2018 and at Sea Otter was a custom mountain bike.

The mountain bike, called the Flow Motion, is capable of handling both 27.5/2.8-inch and 29r/2.35-inch wheels. It features a 65 degree head angle and is long in the front end for stability at speed. Rosen calls the geometry ‘all mountain progressive’ and it’s aimed at being a versatile ride. The show bike featured a 150 mm travel fork from Fox Racing, a Shimano XT 1x11 drivetrain, bars and stem from Race Face, Shimano XTR brakes, and carbon wheels from Reynolds.

The company’s road, 'cross, and gravel bikes all use Sage’s patented/patent pending ‘Cable Clip,’ a device that allows a cable stop to be attached to the frame via a mount that otherwise can manage internal cable routing for electronic shifting. This system—located on the downtube where the cable guides are typically located – allows customers to swap between mechanical and electronic drivetrains.

Also at Sea Otter was a road bike set up with SRAM RED eTAP shifting, wheels from Lightweight; stem, cranks, brakes, and fork from THM Composites, with a headset from Cane Creek and seatpost and bar from 3T. As shown it weighed in at 13.2 lbs, which is far from the lightest functional road racer we've seen, but it's not bad for a metal-framed bike.